I pile the old newspapers into two stacks. It takes a while to bundle them up, then I stack them at the end of the table. I move silently through the darkness. I’ve sweated enough for a shower. The bathroom is tiny but at least there’s a tub, a sink and a shower — a miracle for this part of town. The old buildings in the barrio, if they’re lucky enough to have a bathtub, never have a shower.
Miz Literature left her scent in the bathroom. In his journal (Le Retour du Tchad), Gide writes that what struck him most in Africa was the smell. A smell of strong spices. A smell of leaves. The Negro is of the vegetable kingdom. Whites forget that they have a smell too. Most McGill girls smell like Johnson’s Baby Powder. I don’t know what making love to a girl (over twenty-one, duly vaccinated) who stinks of baby powder does for you. I can never resist going kitchie-kitchie-koo under her chin.
Miz Literature brought her bag of toiletries. Danger. What is she after? Is she intent on subletting the single room Bouba and I share? She must have a spacious Outremont apartment, full of light and fresh air and sweet smells, and now she wants to come down here to live! In the heart of the Third World. These infidels are so perverse!
Miz Literature’s open bag reveals a toothbrush (there’s already a constellation of toothbrushes above my sink), and a tube of Ultra Brite toothpaste (does she think the Negro’s sparkling white teeth are pure myth? Well, think again, WASP. No kidding, it’s the real thing. Ivory jewels on an ebony ring!). Special soap for dry skin, two tubes of lipstick, an eyebrow pencil, some tampons and a little bottle of Tylenol.
I never go anywhere without my little photo of Carole Laure. Hungry mouth and wide eyes next to the long, soft, refined adolescent face of Lewis Furey. The rich boy, intelligent, sophisticated, gentle, clever as they come — shit! Everything I’d like to be. Starring Carole Laure. Carole Laure starring in my bed. Carole Laure fixing me a tribal dish (spicy chicken and rice). Carole Laure listening to jazz with me in this lousy filthy room. Carole Laure, slave to a Negro. Why not?
Through a microscope, this room would look like a camembert cheese. A forest of odors. The teeming (like the tearing noise of silk paper) of shiny creatures. In summer everything spoils so quickly. A fuckfest of a million germs. I picture the planet that way and among those millions of yellow seeds, I dream of the five hundred out of the five hundred million Chinawomen who would take me for their black Mao.
Cannibalism with a Human Face
A DISCREET knock-knock-knock at the door. I open. Miz Literature comes in, arms loaded with pâté, croissants, cheese (brie, oka, camembert), smoked sausages, French bread, Greek desserts and a bottle of wine. I make a summary stab at housekeeping, all aglow at the prospect of eating something besides Zorbaburgers or spaghetti à la DaGiovanni.
I throw open the window: dry, burning air pours into the room in waves. I clear the sink of dirty plates and glasses and drain the soapy water. The fly is sucked downward into a better world. “I swear, by the moon!” (Sura LXXIV, 35.) Farewell, Fly.
Miz Literature finishes cleaning the table. She puts water on to boil for tea. I get comfortable. She fills my glass with wine. I close my eyes. To be waited on by an English girl (Allah is great). Fulfillment is mine. The world is opening to my desires.
I begin to look at Miz Literature with new eyes, though she hasn’t changed. She’s a tall girl, a little hunched over, with albatross arms, her eyes are a little too bright (too trusting), she has pianist’s fingers and a face with astonishingly regular features. Apparently she never had to wear braces, incredible for an Outremont girl. She has small breasts and wears a size 10 shoe.
“Aren’t you eating?” I ask her.
“No.”
She answers with a smile. The smile is a British invention. Actually, the British brought it back from one of their Japanese campaigns.
“Don’t you want to eat?”
“I’ll just watch you,” she breathes.
Just like that, with her eyes on mine.
“I see. You’ll just watch me.”
“I’ll watch you.”
“You like watching me eat?”
“You have such a good appetite. ”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Watching you eat fascinates me. You eat with such passion. I’ve never seen anyone do it like you do.”
“Is it funny to watch?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I find it moving, that’s all.”
Watching me eat moves her. Miz Literature is incredible. She was brought up to believe everything she’s told. Her cultural heritage. I can tell her the most outlandish stories and she’ll nod her head and stare with those believing eyes. She’ll be moved. I can tell her I consume human flesh, that somewhere in my genetic code the desire to eat white flesh is inscribed, that my nights are haunted by her breasts, her hips, her thighs, I swear it, I can tell her all that and more and she’ll understand. She’ll believe me. Imagine: she’s studying at McGill (venerable institution to which the bourgeoisie sends its children to learn clarity, analysis and scientific doubt) and the first Negro to tell her some kind of fancy tale takes her to bed. Why? Because she can afford that luxury. I surrender to the least bit of naïveté, even for a second, and I’m one dead nigger. Literally. I have to be a moving target, otherwise, at the first emotion, my ass would be grass. Miz Literature can afford a clean clear conscience. She has the means. I gave up on that luxury a long time ago. No conscience. No paradise lost. No promised land. You tell me: what good can a conscience possibly do me? It can only cause problems for a Negro brimming over with unappeased fantasies, desires and dreams. Put it this way: I want America. Not one iota less. With her Radio City girls, her buildings, her automobiles, her enormous waste — even her bureaucracy. I want it alclass="underline" good and bad, what you throw away and what you keep, the ugly and beautiful alike. America is a totality. What do you expect me to do with a conscience? I can’t afford one anyway. The way things are going, it would be down at the pawnshop in a flash.
I have to make sure not to bug Miz Literature about being so nice. She’s still the best thing a Negro can afford in these hard times of ours.
When the End of the World Comes, We Will Still Be Locked in a Metaphysical Discussion about the Origin of Desire
BOUBA EMERGES from a 72-hour sleep cure and inquires after the health of our planet.
“What about the bomb?”
“Not yet.”
“What are they waiting for?”
“Your sign, Bouba.”
“What sign, man?”
“The Big Sleep.”
“What keeps you holding on?”
“The thought that there’s still plenty of beautiful girls out there, and the illusion that one day I’ll have them all.”
“Beauty, beauty. What’s beauty anyway?”
“It’s what straightens out a crooked nigger.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, man. Desire is what gives you that hard-on.”
“Whatever you say, Bouba. But where does desire start in the first place?”
“When you get a hard-on, it’s your vision of the world, it’s the fantasies of your adolescence and the weather outside that’s giving you a hard-on. Beauty has nothing to do with it.”
“But a nice ass. ”
“Only in your mind, man.”